holiday with kelli – part 1

My intern holiday officially began when I caught a taxi at 3am to get to Dehradun to catch the 5am morning train to Delhi. I wandered around Delhi, slowly making my way south, discovering how the metro works and what you have to do to get the rickshaw drivers to go where you want to go at a reasonable price (convincing them that I am not simply a foreign tourist who doesn’t know where I want to go and what that should cost). I stopped over at a new friends’ house where I was asked to stay for dinner. They had [real] beef hamburgers. I had forgotten how much better beef tastes than buffalo; they were so good. And before and after dinner I played with their three kids. One of my sister’s friend’s parents and I went to the airport and unintentionally hung around there for several hours (Kelli’s flight was late by more than two hours). It was good to talk with her about India and south India and politics and the States and my sister’s visit and her family … we had lots of time together.

The next morning we headed back north and up the mountain so that we could hang around Mussoorie and so that she could see where I live and work. Sadly, the Himalayas was partially covered up by haze so the crisp snow-covered tops were not visible – its okay though, I showed her pictures of the glory of God’s creation. I was utterly mean to her by not allowing her to go to sleep until late afternoon (well, you have to get through jet lag some how). The next afternoon, we headed back down the mountain (taxi) and south (train) back to Delhi to catch an early morning flight the next day to Chennai. By mid-morning we landed in Chennai and was received (and retrieved) by one of my sister’s seminary friends, Prayer (his name translates to prayer from Tamil to English). He, the driver, and two of his friends gave us a tour of Chennai. We had fun together and they made fun of how my sister eats Indian. It was partially my fault, I admit, because I took away her eating utensils. Also south Indian food is more spicy than north Indian, which she could handle neither.